Family business for the DeBartolos of Oak Brook has turned into a real business operation, with product available online and in about three dozen locations around the Chicago area.

Mario DeBartolo, his wife, Laura; twin sons, Nick and Frank; and daughter, Alyssa all work with DiMario Foods, which sells four varieties of meat snack sticks.

The 1-ounce snack sticks are available in original, hot and garlic & fennel, each of which is made from pork; and rosemary herb, which is made from chicken.

"The first three were the pork ones," Nick DeBartolo said. "We had a number of inquiries about chicken, so we added that, and another flavor, using chicken, probably will be our next addition."

Getting into the snack stick business was an extension of a family tradition, DeBartolo said.

"We've been making soppressata, a type of Italian cured sausage, in my family for generations," he said. "It's seasonal; we make it in the winter because it's an air-cured sausage, and we've always given it to family and friends."

It was the popularity of the family-made soppressata that led the DeBartolo family to start DiMario Foods in January 2014.

"My dad has worked at the Board of Trade for many years, and starting this business was a way for him to reinvent himself and create an opportunity for us," DeBartolo said. "We're foodies in our family, and the snack stick market doesn't have a lot of good quality in it. We wanted to do something using all-natural products and no filler. We look at this as gourmet snack sticks."

Each of the pork varieties has 60 calories, 5 grams of protein, and 4 grams of fat. The rosemary herb chicken stick has 45 calories, 7 grams of protein, and 1.5 grams of fat.

DeBartolo said the original and hot versions of the snack sticks are very much like the two varieties of soppressata his family has made for years.

"There's a little added smoke flavor, but it's pretty much what we've been making and people have been enjoying," he said.

DeBartolo said his family spent more than a year looking to find a manufacturer to make its products for sale. The DiMario Foods snack sticks are made in southern Illinois, he said.

The snack sticks can be ordered online from Amazon, via a link on the DiMario Foods website. The snack sticks also may be purchased in 35 to 40 retail locations in the Chicago area. Among those locations are Kramer Foods, 16 Grant Square, and the Shell ETD Food Mart, 210 E. Ogden Ave., both in Hinsdale, and Casey's Market, 915 Burlington Ave., Western Springs.

Shane Archer, manager of Shell ETD Food Mart, said the store has been selling DiMario Snack Sticks for about 1 ½ years.

"They've been selling well," he said. "I think people like them because they are all natural and have more information on the label than the other snack sticks. Personally, I like them a lot."

DiMario Snack Sticks recently got some notoriety as one of six finalists among more than 170 entries in Peapod's Next Best, an on-air competition with Windy City Live searching for Chicagoland's next best food or beverage product from up and coming food entrepreneurs. The winner of the competition received a one-year distribution deal from the online grocer.

"We were a last-minute entry," DeBartolo said. "It was a great opportunity, a fun experience and offered great exposure."

DeBartolo said he and his family would continue to send emails and make phone calls in an effort to find additional places to sell their product. They also are looking to find a local distributor.

"Our goal is to become a big player in this," he said. "We want to be known as the highest quality snack stick."